Previously in this series: The adventures of Madeline.
A long way out in the deep blue sea there lived a fish.
Not just an ordinary fish, but the most beautiful fish in the
entire ocean. His scales were every shade of blue and
green and purple, with sparkling silver scales among them.
He had not yet learned to value himself, which means:
He had not yet learned to fight for his happiness.
The other fish — who lacked the courage of their own greatness –
were amazed at his beauty. They called him Rainbow Fish.
“Come on, Rainbow Fish,” they would call.
“Come and play with us!”
But the Rainbow Fish would just glide past,
proud and silent, letting his scales shimmer.
Would it have been fit for him to mix with them?
One day, a little blue fish followed after him.
“Rainbow Fish,” he called, “wait for me!
Please give me one of your shiny scales.
They are so wonderful, and you have so many.”
Children, this is the first treason.
The giving of gifts is a betrayal of your own birthright.
“You want me to give you one of my special scales?
Joy is the goal of existence, and joy is not to be stumbled upon,
but to be achieved!
Who do you think you are?” cried the Rainbow Fish.
“Get away from me!”
Shocked, the little blue fish swam away. He was so upset; he
told all his friends what had happened.
He and his friends were moochers and looters;
idling, trifling, stifling non-producers.
From then on, no one would have anything to do with the
Rainbow Fish. They turned away when he swam by.
The word “We” is as lime poured over men,
which sets and hardens to stone, and crushes
all beneath it, and that which is white and that
which is black are lost equally in the grey of it.
It is the word by which the depraved steal the virtue
of the good, by which the weak steal the might
of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages.
What is joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it?
What is wisdom, if even the fools can dictate?
What is freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and impotent, are masters?
Ah, the monster of “We,” the word of serfdom, of plunder,
of misery, falsehood and shame.
And the other fish were “We,” and the Rainbow Fish alone was “I.”
What good were the dazzling, shimmering scales with no one to admire them?
Now he was the loneliest fish in the entire ocean.
The Rainbow Fish had yet to learn that achievement of one’s own happiness
is the only moral purpose in life –
that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence is the real proof
of moral integrity, since it is the result of your loyalty
to the achievement of your values.
But he did not yet realize this, so he poured out his sorrows to the starfish.
“I really am beautiful. Why doesn’t anybody like me?”
(Ah, children, self-respect is something that can’t be killed!)
“I can’t answer that for you,” said the starfish.
(No one can give you answers, children; no one can master you)
“Personally, I’d give the scales away. But if you go beyond the coral reef to a deep cave
you will find the wise octopus. Maybe she can help you.”
The Rainbow Fish found the cave. It was very dark inside and he couldn’t see anything.
(Children! Man is blind, because he has eyes — deaf, because he has ears –
deluded, because he has a mind –
and the things he perceives do not exist, because he perceives them!)
Then suddenly two eyes caught him in their glare and the octopus emerged from the darkness.
“I have been waiting for you,” said the octopus.
“The waves have told me your story. This is my advice.
Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps
of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul
perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach.
The world you desire can be won. It exists…it is real…it is possible…it is yours.”
“I don’t understand,” the Rainbow Fish said. “The starfish told me to give away
my shining scales. He said that if I gave them away, I would no longer be the most beautiful
fish in the sea, but that I would learn to be happy.”
“What is freedom?” the octopus asked.
“To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.”
“Wait –” the Rainbow Fish cried,
but the octopus had already disappeared into
a dark cloud of ink.
To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.
Suddenly he felt the light touch of a fin. The little blue fish was back!
“Rainbow Fish, please, don’t be angry. I just want one little scale.” The Rainbow Fish wavered.
Only one very very small shimmery scale, he thought. Maybe I wouldn’t miss just one.
Carefully the Rainbow Fish pulled out the smallest scale and gave it to the little fish.
“Thank you! Thank you very much!” The little blue fish bubbled playfully, as he tucked the shiny
scale in among his blue ones. A rather peculiar feeling came over the Rainbow Fish. For a long
time he watched the little blue fish swim back and forth with his new scale glittering in the water.
The little blue fish whizzed through the ocean with his scale flashing, so it didn’t take long
before the Rainbow Fish was surrounded by the other fish. Everyone wanted a glittering scale.
He realized then there was no end to their greed,
that they would not be satisfied until he had given away all his scales,
that they would stop at nothing to make him like themselves,
dull and stripped bare and part of the faceless, nameless “We.”
And he rejected the cowardice of the mob.
“I am a fish who does not exist for others,” he said.
“I have come here to say that I do not recognize anyone’s right to one minute of my life.
And I have come here to say: give back my scale to me.”
And the little blue fish recognized the Rainbow Fish had the greater claim to it.
But still he did not return the scale.
It was a lesson the Rainbow Fish never forgot.
It was the last present he ever gave a lesser being.
From that day forward he lived only for himself.
Children, will you be like the Rainbow Fish?
I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being.
I am the warrant and the sanction.
And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth;
This god whom men have sought since men came into being,
This god who will grant them joy and peace and pride.
This god
This one word
I.
Tags: ayn rand, children’s book, children’s stories made horrific, this time i’m on ayn rand’s side the original was some bullshit
So, usually I think you have created horror monsters out of beloved children’s tales, but I will say, HANDS-DOWN, that this version of Rainbow Fish is the best version. That f*cking book is the woooooorst. Thank the FSM the only version we have is a chewable plastic one that is used exclusively for teething.
Worst book ever. I threw away our copy so I didn’t have to inflict it on anyway.
Okay granted it was a bathtub copy and was sprouting mold, but still. Awful book.
I take solace in the fact that ours is a hand-me-down, so at least we didn’t pay money for that crap.
I did not fully remember the horror that was Rainbow Fish until I revisited it lately and HOLY SELF-SACRIFICE, BATMAN. (NOT IN A GOOD WAY.)
Is the original like The Giving Tree at all? Because I hated that book as a child and possibly even more so as an adult. YOU ARE IMPORTANT, TREE. DO NOT CHOP YOURSELF DOWN!
I hadn’t read this before, but there’s a video of Ernest Borgnine reading it (with animations), if you want to see the original.
The fish gives away his scales, but he doesn’t seem to be physically harmed by doing so. I think it’s my knowledge that the scale giving would actually kill the fish that makes the book especially awful.
The horror monster in this case is SOCIALISM
SOCIALISM isn’t even the most horrible part of this book. (I’m pro-SOCIALISM, anyway.) The horrible part of this book is that no one likes the Rainbow Fish until he gives them something.
Way to teach kids to make friends through the personalities, book.
Mallory, you made an Ayn Rand convert out of me. Thank you! Or thank me! Whatever!
Ugh, this book.
Hey now, don’t impugn the noble octopus with Randian sentiments.
Yeah, octopuses are seriously wonderful creatures and would never say such nonsense; for one, they’re too busy puttering around in their garden to give any “me, me, me” fish worldly advice.
Any self-respecting octopus would take one look at Rainbow Fish, and scuttle away, saying NOPE NOPE NOPE.
80% of the time Rand is out of her gourd and 20% of the time she is more right than any other human being on earth. LIVE FOR YOURSELF. PROTECT YOUR SCALES.
For every Atlas Shrugged, there is a teeny-tiny Anthem just waiting to worm its way into your brain. She’s insidious, possibly in a good way.
I can’t help linking this in my mind to last week’s She Said, She Said. LW2, YOU ARE THE RAINBOW FISH AND YOUR MUSICIAN HUSBAND IS MOOCHING OFF YOUR SHINY SHINY SCALES.
Yes, yes!
AND HE’S NOT EVEN GOOD AT POLISHING THE SCALES! HE’S MAKING YOU BOTH DULL, DRAB CREATURES!
I Wikipedia’d “The Rainbow Fish” instead of “Rainbow Fish” and got this:
“The Rainbow Fish is a legendary creature in Hinduism as large as a whale which ate Vishnu’s incarnation Buddha who removed suffering from the world. It was caught by some fishermen who freed Buddha. When the rainbow fish was caught it provided an entire nation with food for a year.
Its red scales were made of fire, its blue scales of ice, its green scales of grass and its yellow scales of lightning.”
Screw Ayn Rand, this is much better. Every man/fish/incarnation for itself!
To be clear, I believe that this approach is a nice compromise between Rand’s selfish free market bullshit and that dumb Rainbow fish’s compulsory selflessness.
Stay proud and silent, Rainbow Fish!
I had never read the original until Mallory showed it to me while writing this, and that book is garbage and this one is great, so.
Yup, BOOO Rainbow Fish and its message that you’re only a nice person if you sacrifice what you love most.
Of course the starfish would suggest to give away the scales. They keep giving away their own limbs and killing themselves to give handouts to the moochers and leechers. http://io9.com/an-unbelievably-gruesome-epidemic-… =(
Oh. My god. THANKS FOR THE NIGHTMARES. D:
Literal monsters. http://the-toast.net/2014/01/08/sweet-god-starfis…
Ugh, I hate this book so much.
I was volunteering in my kid’s (pre-k) classroom and the teacher read this book and it was just horrific.
For those of you unfamiliar with the book, there’s a fish with a great body. and other fish make demands on that fish. One, in particular, wants a piece of the fish’s body– a literal piece of it, a chunk of its outer covering. The fish is beautiful and wary of other fish, and the little ugly keeps making bodily demands on the beautiful rainbow fish. When the attractive, lovely fish does not agree to violate its own body for the joy of the other fish, it runs to all the other fish in the area and they shun and bully the rainbow fish until it agrees to give up control of its own body to them and let them all take a literal piece of its literal body.
At best it’s a pro-bullying book. Look at that snooty stuck up fish who isn’t harming anyone. Lets all be dicks to it until it gives us what we want (a piece of its actualfact body). At worst it ties into rape culture, personal boundaries, and consent issues. A group of peers team up and demand that a living breathing thing hand over control of its body to them OR ELSE. Come on. It’s just one scale. Just let stick the tip in, baby.
I first encountered this book as a kid and had an incredibly visceral negative reaction to it, although I couldn’t really say what was so upsetting about it. It’s just so gross.
I couldn’t articulate why I hated this so much, but YES.
This was exactly my reaction when I read it as an adult
But where was the bit about the rainbow fish being on food stamps? I’m disappointed in all of us right now.
Wait a minute, if this is Ayn you seem to have cut out maybe 200 pages (it is a children’s book after all).
Shiny fish privilege. He didn’t work for those scales, but everybody else has to work for them, even though they can never actually achieve them.
Well, this is long after this was originally posted but I have to say that prior to reading this I had no memory of the plot of this book and indeed had fond memories of it. I was a child easily swayed by pretty pictures.
I love how it goes from “Rainbow Fish” into sudden passages from “Anthem.”
YAAAAAAS RAINBOW FISH YAAAAAAS. KEEP YOUR SCALES, DO NOT GIVE THEM TO THE PARASITIC SCUM.
Seriously, I’ve hated this book since I was a child. All it taught me was to keep your things at all costs or else your so-called friends will take your stuff.
YAAAAAAS RAINBOW FISH YAAAAAAS. KEEP YOUR SCALES, DO NOT GIVE THEM TO THE PARASITIC SCUM.
Seriously, I've hated this book since I was a child. All it taught me was to keep your things at all costs or else your so-called friends will take your stuff.